Here in the U.K we've discovered a lot of our M.P's have been making greedy and frivolous expense claims can politicians ever be trusted again . Or are they just pigs at the trough ??

Bikerman

Omega-hotelomega wrote:

Here in the U.K we've discovered a lot of our M.P's have been making greedy and frivolous expense claims can politicians ever be trusted again . Or are they just pigs at the trough ??

I think it is fairly clear what happened. MPs treated their expenses as an additional element of salary, rather than recompense for genuine costs. It seems that the officials concerned (the Fees Office) were complicit in this - telling the MPs with a nod and a wink how to extract the maximum from their allowances.

Most of the claims are within the rules. The question then arises - are the rules reasonable? Clearly they are not. I have worked in business and although I would expect travelling and food expenses to be met, I would not expect to claim for household items, mortgage interest and entertainments - and the finance office would have hauled me over the coals for even trying.

Finally there is the issue of those MPs who have clearly (in my opinion) acted outside the rules. The two labour MPs who claimed mortgage interest for loans which were already repaid, for example. These people should be:
a) Expelled from their parliamentary party
b) Deselected in their constituency
c) Investigated by the police with a view to bringing fraud charges.

Voodoocat

Omega-hotelomega wrote:

Or are they just pigs at the trough ??

Name one politician that is not

Bikerman

Voodoocat wrote:

Omega-hotelomega wrote:

Or are they just pigs at the trough ??

Name one politician that is not

Dennis Skinner

lagoon

Hilary Benn only claimed £140.

deanhills

Bikerman wrote:

It seems that the officials concerned (the Fees Office) were complicit in this - telling the MPs with a nod and a wink how to extract the maximum from their allowances.

Sounds almost like Indi's Watchdogs having gone wrong. People always seem to push the envelope a little when it gets to money matters. I.e. if it is tax avoidance (as opposed to tax evasion) the former being perfectly legal, whatever is allowed will be pushed to the limit. So for me the "nod and wink" is probably more guilty than the MPs who made use of an opportunity to add to their income. Moreover, usually the MPs are too busy to worry about their personal or professional finances. They have professional accountants who do all of this for them at a good-sized fee, and accountants would probably have been more motivated to score extra income for the MPs than the MPs themselves since this the accountants' job to look after. I wonder why it has become a scandal all of a sudden however. And is it really that big a deal? Go to countries in Africa where government officials are treating their Department budgets as their own personal dues, and that is a real problem. But possibly the problem in the UK is one of lax government, too big government and people who have become complacent in every sense of the word. I have to wonder about those BIG Banks that were bailed out with the able assistance of Government and the expense accounts of the Executive Officers and Senior Management of the Banks. Am almost certain that would make for an interesting study. Especially since the bail-out also bailed the Bank officials out, they kept their jobs with all the trimmings and are still FAT cats in every sense of the word

lagoon

The real problem is that there is no real opposition to the Government. Here in Britain we have the strongest Government and the weakest Parliament. Where are the independent inquiries? The checks and balances?

deanhills

lagoon wrote:

The real problem is that there is no real opposition to the Government. Here in Britain we have the strongest Government and the weakest Parliament. Where are the independent inquiries? The checks and balances?

Perhaps time for starting a new party? I have come across at least two socialist libertarians from the UK, so imagine there is plenty of scope for that. Must say though that people seem to have grown so passive in accepting limited offerings in quality of political parties and candidates. Perhaps time to take an active stand? Perhaps they need to start with holding tea parties like they do in the US?

gandalfthegrey

We see the same type of scandal occurring again and again, for parties of every ideology and in every jurisdiction, costing many parties power.

In Canada there was recently a big scandal in Newfoundland and Labrador that cost members from every party their seats in the provincial legislature.

What really can be done if this keeps reoccurring?

malcolmpreen

Today there are the European Parliament elections... will a message be sent to the big parties ?

Personally, I wish there was a "none of the above" option which was properly counted, and enabled a sensible "protest" vote to be made..

We will see I guess....

Malcolm

Bannik

lagoon wrote:

Hilary Benn only claimed £140.

its not about how much they claimed or what they claimed (some mineor stuff like dog food) But the fact that they used money that the people gave too pay for crap which the gov would never help us with, for example dog food (lol) an MP was allowed payments for her dog food, now i dont know what right and wrong are but if the MPs can claim for dog food why cant I?

deanhills

I sometimes wonder at people focussing so much on penny pinchers, whereas the Government has just voted billions of funds in bailing out Banks, executives of which are still in the same jobs, with the same pay and the same benefits. It's good to question the MP's expense claims, but why not do it thoroughly and comprehensively for the whole country and the whole economic system?

chalkpit3

It's the focus on self inherent in these 'penny pinchers' that *causes* the billions to be wasted. And no-one has touched at all on the problem of second jobs.